2024-01-24 00:23:15
The Superior Court of Quebec authorizes a class action once morest public CHSLDs in the province “in which there has been an outbreak of 25% or more cases of COVID-19”. Users, spouses, natural caregivers, children, grandchildren and heirs of deceased residents will be able to be part of it.
The judgment was delivered on Monday. The authorization request targeted all public CHSLDs in the province that experienced an outbreak of COVID-19 during the first two waves of the pandemic. Jean-Pierre Daubois, who lost his 94-year-old mother in April 2020, alleged that the “faulty and negligent” conduct of health establishments and authorities is “the direct and probable cause of the outbreaks” which “caused at least 5,347 deaths” in CHSLDs between March 13, 2020 and March 20, 2021.
The Superior Court ultimately restricted the group targeted by the collective action to establishments with a share of 25% or more of people infected with COVID-19. According to Me Patrick Martin-Ménard, who is leading the case, the appeal might affect 118 CHSLDs, or thousands of residents, their loved ones and family members. “It’s a real tragedy that happened in the spring of 2020,” the lawyer commented Tuesday during a press conference. “9,117 people were infected with COVID in public, private and approved and non-approved CHSLDs in the province. 3,669 died,” he recalled.
Me Martin-Ménard maintains that the Quebec authorities had developed an intervention plan in 2006 to deal with a pandemic, modeled on that of the WHO, but that this plan was never updated. “We tableted it and forgot it so that when the threat of COVID appeared in January 2020, we were not ready and no one reacted at that time,” he said. -he says.
He criticizes the authorities for showing “improvisation” when the pandemic broke out and for concentrating resources in the hospital environment, which meant that CHSLD residents were unable to receive the required care. .
All these criticisms will, however, have to be proven in court during the debates on the merits which should take place in the coming months, unless the decision rendered by the Superior Court is appealed.
The class action opens the door to compensation for residents of the CHSLDs concerned, their loved ones and natural caregivers in particular.
With Jeanne Corriveau
Further details will follow.
To watch on video
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